Many unable to afford luxury of local concerts

“I wouldn’t want testosterone running through my veins, I really wouldn’t. Women are not built the way men are. Men are designed to spread their seed, that’s how they propagated the world. So forgiveness is important” Poignant image of Saddleworth Moor where missing Ian Brady victim Keith Bennett is thought to be buried. Photo by Roger Kinder @rogerkinder WHILE needless to say Huddersfield Philharmonic is a good orchestra that always puts on an excellent performance with a variety of invited soloists, I feel it strange your reviewer needed to comment on the sparse audience size.

Unfortunately the audiences are generally sparse for these concerts, no doubt due to suppressed wages, the high cost of living and unemployment.

Concerts are a luxury that a majority can no longer afford, not helped by the high costs of tickets with £15 as an average price for an adult ticket for virtually any concert and children at half price puts these concerts out of reach for ordinary families.

If the council reduced the ticket prices to £5 per person for any concert and a special discounted rate for families, schools and university students there would be more chance of the town hall being full and they would probably make more money doing that than they currently do at their high prices with a virtually empty hall.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the audience is solely people related to performers in the orchestra.

Unfortunately, not only is this type of entertainment out of the price reach of the many, so are the lessons to find the musicians of the future.

This is not helped by so many things being centralised in Huddersfield, ignoring all the far flung outlying areas and giving these children little if no chance of experiencing music other than singing at school which not everyone enjoys.